


A Rather Odd Summer

by Marranje



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Gen, Harry Potter & Draco Malfoy (off-screen/implied), Implied Time Travel, Narcissa POV, Time Travel, background Lucius Malfoy/Narcissa Malfoy - Freeform, luce and cissa are v confused, no beta we die like men, or rather
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-22
Updated: 2020-12-22
Packaged: 2021-03-10 16:28:26
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,109
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28240182
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Marranje/pseuds/Marranje
Summary: The story of that one summer when nothing seemed quite right. It's the summer before his first year at Hogwarts, but a few weeks into the summer, Draco starts behaving oddly. Narcissa can’t for the life of her figure out why.
Relationships: Draco Malfoy & Narcissa Black Malfoy
Comments: 8
Kudos: 27





	A Rather Odd Summer

Narcissa wasn't quite sure when it started. She noticed it around the same time as the calendar flipped from June to July. It was subtle, and he was doing a very good job of hiding it. Sometimes, though, he would slip. It was in the way his arrogant smirks didn’t seem quite genuine, the way he no longer looked at Lucius like he was Merlin himself, and the way he would sometimes stare into the air with eyes of an old man who'd seen too much.

It was disconcerting to say the least, and when she had first noticed, it became impossible to unsee it. She searched her brain for a possible explanation to what might have happened, but nothing stood out to her. The summer had been perfectly normal so far. It certainly hadn't been life-changing, at the very least.

When she looked back on it, she condemned herself for not noticing it sooner. The signs were there. There were so many things that should have made her realise that something was off. Like when Draco suddenly stopped slicking back his hair and then looked at her like he didn't know what she was talking about when she asked about it. Or that one time when he called Lucius for “Lucius” instead of “father”. At the time, it hadn’t seemed significant.

She couldn’t remember what had been the turning-point, what finally made her realise that this was more serious than what she'd initially thought. There had been no big event or major happening; it was just one act of strange behaviour too many. After that, it became glaringly obvious, and it was impossible _not_ to notice. It made her wonder how she’d missed it for so long.

She didn’t do much about it in the beginning. Draco was fine, after all. There could be plenty of reasonable explanations as to why he was behaving the way he did. Children changed as they grew older, didn't they? For all she knew, this was all perfectly normal.

(And yet, she couldn't shake off the feeling of _wrong, wrong, wrong_.)

For Lucius, it took a while longer to see.

‘Narcissa, dear? Have you noticed something… different with Draco lately?’ Lucius asked sometime in the middle of July. His expression was as calm as ever, but he couldn’t hide the concern in his voice. Narcissa didn't say anything for a while. Lucius' eyes widened the tiniest bit in realisation. He rephrased. ‘When did you notice?’

Narcissa gave him half a smile. ‘A few weeks ago,’ she said. Lucius nodded, deep in thought.

‘What do we do?’ he asked a moment later. Yes, that was the question. What were they going to do? Narcissa wasn't sure.

‘I don’t know,’ she said eventually. She bit her lip. It was a bad habit from her childhood she had never quite been able to rid herself of, despite her up-bringing. ‘Nothing, at least for now.’

‘Mother, we are going to Diagon tomorrow, are we not?’ Draco asked for about the hundredth time. It was the only thing he had been able to talk about the last few days.

‘Yes, darling,’ Narcissa sighed.

Draco nodded thoughtfully. ‘Just making sure.’

Narcissa had tried to ask him what was so special about the 31st, but he had yet to give her a straight answer. He either regarded her with a cryptic expression that rivalled his father’s, mumbled something about it being a month until the 1st of September, or simply just grinned at her.

Lucius looked up at her for behind the Prophet with an eyebrow raised. Narcissa just shook her head. She didn’t understand it either.

The 31st of July, Draco didn’t seem able to sit still for a single moment. His eyes were shining with excitement, anticipation, and… nervousness? She wasn’t sure. Narcissa had found it hard to interpret her son lately. It scared her. Sometime, he seemed like a completely different person. But by the time she got so worried she began to seriously consider taking him to St Mungo’s, he would do something so _Draco,_ that she’d dismiss it all.

‘We can leave now, if you cannot wait any longer,’ she smiled at him, when he once again cast a glance at the clock. Draco shook his head.

‘It’s fine,’ he said. ‘We’ll leave when you said.’

Narcissa wanted to frown, but she kept smiling and said, ‘If you’re sure.’

Draco nodded, and looked up at the clock yet again.

When it finally was time to leave, Draco did not rush out as Narcissa had thought he might. No, he got dressed at normal pace, and waited patiently for his parents by the fire place. His eyes were shining even brighter now, but he let Lucius lead the way.

Narcissa didn’t understand. They had been to Diagon Ally several times before. There was nothing new or special about it. The only thing she could think of that made this particular trip special, was that Draco would be getting his first wand.

Except, Draco hadn't said anything about wands in weeks.

When they got to Madam Malkin's, Draco was still looking franticly around. Later, she realised that he was most likely looking for some _one_ , and not some _thing_.

Narcissa had originally planned to make the trip to Diagon short, but seeing her son so excited made her reconsider. ‘Do you want to go and get your wand first?’ she asked him.

Draco looked up at her, confused. ‘Shouldn't I be fitted for robes first?’

‘Well, if that's want you want,’ she said, surprised.

Draco nodded. ‘It is.’ He turned around to enter the shop. Narcissa made a move to follow, Lucius close behind. Draco stopped.

‘Where are you going?’

‘Draco,’ Lucius warned. _Don't make a scene._ Narcissa waved him off discretely.

‘Don't you want us to come?’

Draco frowned, but only for a moment. He glanced around again. ‘Could you, ehm, get my books?’

 _‘Draco_ ,’ Lucius hissed quietly.

‘Certainly,’ Narcissa cut him off. She wondered if she had read the situation wrong. Maybe Draco wanted to get through their errands quickly so they could go to other shops instead. Like that quidditch shop he'd been so excited about last time. She swiftly remade her plans in her head. ‘Your father can purchase your books, and I'll go look at wands. Come and join me at Ollivander’s when you’re done,' she said with a soft smile. Draco smiled back, content, and disappeared into the shop.

‘What was that?’ Lucius asked when the door closed behind Draco.

‘Boys his age don’t want their parents hanging over them all the time,’ she replied easily. Truth was, she didn’t really know herself, but she’d rather not discuss what she really thought in the middle of the crowded street. They would have plenty of time to discuss it later, when they were back at the manor and Narcissa had had time to process it.

When Draco joined her at Ollivander's later, he was smiling a genuinely happy smile.

‘What got you in such a good mood?’ Narcissa asked as he walked over.

‘Oh, you know. Just excited to get my wand,’ Draco replied.

Narcissa smiled understandingly, while frowning in her mind. He didn't look excited. He looked _pleased_ , as if he'd succeeded at making a particularly difficult business deal.

‘I see.’ Narcissa stepped aside, so Draco could see the wands that was laid out on the counter. ‘Your father and I think one of these wands will fit you nicely.’

Draco took one glance at the counter, before shaking his head. ‘No. None of those.’

‘Draco. You haven't even tried them,’ she said sternly.

He sighed. ‘I just know.’

Again, Narcissa got the feeling that her son knew something she didn't. As if he was seeing a bigger picture she had no insight to.

As if on cue, Mr Ollivander appeared in the hall between the rows of wands. ‘Ah, young Master Malfoy,’ he said.

‘I'm looking for my wand.’

‘Yes, yes,’ Ollivander said. ‘None of these were a fit?’ Narcissa didn’t like the way he said that, as if he had known she wouldn’t. She didn’t like the way he had spoken to her earlier when she had picked out some wands they’d had thought would fit nicely. As if he knew her son better than she did. No, Narcissa didn’t like Mr Ollivander much at all.

‘No,’ Draco replied.

‘Well, let's see if we find the right one.’ He put the lids on the boxes on the counters and shoved them back on the shelf. He regarded Draco for a moment, before picking out another box.

‘White oak, dragon heart string, 11 inches,’ he said.

Draco shook his head. ‘It's not the one.’ But when Ollivander offered him the wand, he took it nonetheless.

Ollivander snapped it out of his hand almost instantly. ‘No. Not that one,’ he mumbled in agreement. ‘What about...’ He grabbed a new box. ‘This one. Ten inches, hawthorn wood, unicorn hair. Reasonably springy.’

Narcissa watched her son's eyes widen. He stayed quiet as Ollivander presented him the wand. The moment his hand touched the wand, a silent wind blew through her hair. Narcissa found the moment strangely anticlimactic. She remembered purchasing her own wand in this very shop so many years ago. Sparks had erupted from the tip as she waved it around.

Draco didn't wave the wand around. He just closed his eyes for a moment, grip tight around the handle. The wand had a simple design, deep brown, straight and sleek. ‘This one,’ he said.

‘That one, indeed,’ said Ollivander. ‘It's a powerful wand. A great companion for a wizard going through difficult times.’

Narcissa choose that moment to made her voice heard. ‘How much for the wand?’ she asked coolly. She didn't like the way the wandmaker spoke to her son. She found the whole operation strange, and wanted to get out of the shop and find Lucius.

The thought of Lucius made her stop in her tracks for a split second. He wouldn't be pleased to hear that his son's wand had a unicorn hair core. There hadn't been a Malfoy with a unicorn hair-powered wand in generations. Her husband prided himself on his dragon heartstring one, perfect for his more… questionable spell use. He expected Draco to follow in his footstep.

She paid for the wand, and ushered Draco out of the store. He looked happy, unaware of the displeasure he would meet when Lucius found out about the wand. Narcissa was happy to keep it that way, if only for a moment. Draco had smiled more in this day alone than he had the entire summer.

The rest of the summer passed much like the previous months. Draco kept mostly to himself when he wasn’t downstairs. It wasn't that he avoided them, per se. He would seek out their company every now and then, but that was it. He didn’t interact with them much, and he refused to talk to Lucius about anything other than the weather and similar topics. When Lucius tried to address the importance of making alliances and connections at schools or anything even remotely political, he would simply leave the room, to his father’s utter displeasure.

He spent no time with his friends either, claiming he had no time for the happenings of children, as if he himself did not belong in that category. Narcissa found his sudden disinterest in his friends especially worrisome. Draco had always enjoyed being with his peers, if only to show off and soak in their admiration. She worried that the antisocial behaviour would only contribute to his generally strange behaviour.

When she caught him in his room, she could often see him scribbling away in his notebooks or chewing on his fingernails in concentration (which Narcissa found very undignified). When she asked at one point, Draco had seemed caught off-guard. 'Just, you know, Hogwarts preparations,' he’d shrugged. Somehow, she doubted he was working on his schoolwork. And yet, this too, she let him get away with, as with everything else.

In the end, it was Lucius who confronted him about it. Narcissa had always been rather non-confrontational herself, preferring to operate behind the curtains, unseen and unnoticed. It went as well as one could have expected.

‘Draco, what has been going on lately?’ Lucius asked one evening, perhaps more harshly than Narcissa found appropriate.

‘What are you talking about?’ Draco replied without missing a beat, yet looking rather unsurprised.

‘This- You’re never out with your friends, all you do is stay coped up in your room, and your behaviour lately have been _unacceptable_. And you do _not_ get to leave this time.’

Draco sighed – he actually sighed, as if Lucius was inconveniencing him. The lack of respect appalled Narcissa, and she couldn't understand where he got this sort of behaviour from. ‘What do you want me to say?’ he said.

‘Explain to me what happened,’ Lucius demanded.

‘Nothing happened. I just don’t _want_ to hang out with my “friends”,’ he said, making air-quotes. ‘And my behaviour has been perfectly reasonable.’

Lucius was furious. Narcissa was watching it all unfold with a bad feeling in her stomach. This couldn’t possibly end well.

‘You don’t listen to me when I talk to you, and you leave in the middle of a conversation!’

Draco pursed his lips, obviously trying to hold back whatever his original reply might have been. ‘I have no interest in going to Hogwarts to make “alliances”. I don’t want a career in politics. And I can’t stand you referring to Muggle-borns with slurs. I don’t want to fight with you, so instead of listening to your- your crap, I’d rather just remove myself from the conversation.’

Both Narcissa and Lucius started at him in shock. ‘Draco!’ Narcissa gasped.

‘He asked,’ he said with a shrug.

Lucius’ pale skin was turning an unflattering shade of red. ‘ _Draco Lucius Malfoy,_ ’ he hissed. ‘I with not tolerate this nonsense!’

‘Well, I will not tolerate _your_ nonsense.’

And with that, Draco turned on his heels and left the sitting room.

Later that night, Lucius and Narcissa had a heated discussion about Draco’s behaviour. Well, it wasn’t really a discussion, as neither of them quite knew what to think. Narcissa was hysterically inquiring about where they went wrong in his upbringing, and Lucius was yelling about the atrocity of it all. In the end, it didn't lead anywhere. Narcissa went to bed early, but when Lucius eventually joined her, she was still wide awake.

The atmosphere was chilled the next couple of weeks. Draco spent more time in his room, though interacted with them rather normally during dinner and afternoon tea. He still avoided politics like the plague, but had taken to politely dismissing the topic when Lucius tried to bring it up instead of just leaving.

It was all rather disconcerting. Draco _seemed_ calm, and he was always polite, almost overly so. But every now and then, his mask would slip, and some emotion would shine through. Exasperation, annoyance, even anger. Narcissa didn’t know what to think of it.

He had seemed fine in the beginning of the summer. Even after he had started behaving differently, he had still seemed like Draco. But after the argument with Lucius, most of that had slipped away. It made her wonder how much of a show Draco had put up earlier that summer.

What in the world happened to her child? Had something actually happened to him to make him change so fundamentally, or was it just a spat with his father about politics? How much of this was normal for a child his age? Should she be more worried, or did she worry too much?

At least Draco’s feud seemed to be mostly with his father, Narcissa thought somewhat egotistically. He was still happy to spend the afternoons with her, drinking tea and wandering through the gardens. Perhaps even more so than before the summer. Not even the stern conversation she had had with him about his manners could change that.

It reassured her to some degree. Because despite everything, Draco was still her Draco. Even if he spoke differently. Even if he didn’t act like he had just months before. Even if something didn’t seem quite right.

The last few days of August, she could almost pretend the summer hadn’t happened. Narcissa revelled in the normalcy of it all. It had been a trying summer for them all, so it was nice to imagine that everything was as it should be.

The mood lightened at Draco became more and more focused on the prospect of going to Hogwarts so soon, and seemed to momentarily forget his grudge against Lucius. It wasn't all just joy and excitement, though. In fact, Narcissa felt like she more often than not would find him deep in thought, nervous and apprehensive. She didn't worry too much about it. She had been nervous before her first year, too. It was normal.

(And yet, the feeling that something was wrong persisted.)

When Draco, Lucius, and Narcissa took a Portkey to London 1 September, Draco was unusually quiet, even by the standard of that summer. Narcissa chalked it up to nervousness, but she couldn’t help but feel like there was something more to it.

The platform was slowly filling with more and more people. Draco was on his toes, leading the way through the crowd. She looked down to hide a smile when she saw his starting wide-eyes at the Hogwarts Express. It was quite magnificent. She had been in awe the first time she saw, too.

When they reached the train, Draco took his trunk from his father. He took a step backward and regarded them for a short moment.

'Well. Goodbye, then,' he said.

He reached out a hand to his father. It was an awkward handshake if she'd ever seen one. She didn't understand the dynamic between the two.

Draco then turned to her, and she half-expected another handshake. Narcissa was surprised when Draco went for a hug instead. The Malfoys didn’t do public display of affection – the Black’s neither, for that matter. Nonetheless, she returned the hug. It was over almost as fast as it had begun, but it felt slightly easier to send her child away for several months afterward.

When they let go, he turned around and boarded the train without another word. It took everything Narcissa had not to start crying. Beside her, Lucius was looking stoically ahead, but he squeezed her hand when the Express left the platform.

When they returned to the manor, it felt eerily empty.

**Author's Note:**

> yet another little thing that's been gathering dust on my harddrive for way too long. i'm on christmas break, so i've been trying to finish up some WIPs. hope you enjoyed it, and please don't hesitate to let me know what you think! happy holidays, y'all:)


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